NBR lists professionals to expand its income tax base

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is making a list of various professional groups at district and upazila levels to expand its income tax base.
Taking the advantage of the National ID Card, the government agency has engaged the civil administration to find out how many of the professionals with taxable income have Tax Identification Number (TIN).
“We have engaged the civil administration to make a list of doctors, lawyers, businessmen, contractors and artists to find out how many of them have TIN numbers,” NBR Chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid said.
The NBR Chairman said people are fearful of the NBR officials as he defended the new approach.
“To ease that fear we have changed the method of conducting the survey,” Mazid said.
The agency has also moved to strengthen the activities of its Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) to identify people who evade income taxes.
NBR chairman said that from now on, they would give priority to intelligence activities for enhancing tax collection.
Mazid said that the new way of collecting tax related information by using the civil administration is to bypass the taxmen who are suffering from an “image crisis”.
The NBR chairman said he has taken some measures to make the agency more effective and people-friendly, adding that the new method is part of the plan.
Currently, the country has about 26 lakh registered taxpayers, of which, only about 6 lakh submitted tax returns in the previous fiscal.